


Unstoppable

by vignettes



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, bungou stray dogs au, it didn't happen, it was supposed to be romantic but, you can read this with shipping goggles tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 13:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8980804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vignettes/pseuds/vignettes
Summary: A journey to happiness.In which Kuroo hides, Kenma is tired of it, and the Armed Defense Agency is there to help them both.(read on tumblr.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [writinghomunculus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/writinghomunculus/gifts).



> Armed Detective Agency -> Armed Defense Agency
> 
> This is my hq!!ss gift to tumblr user [hanavmaki](http://hanavmaki.tumblr.com/). I'm posting this without editing bc I'm on vacation, but I'll look it over when I get back!
> 
> Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays! I hope you enjoy this. I really liked writing it and am thinking about turning it into a longer fic bc I'm not completely satisfied with this.
> 
> (title lowkey inspired by the yoi opening)

They live in the bustling city of Tokyo, existing simultaneously in the unremarkable life of an average college student and in the shadows occupied by the world of the super powered.

It can get hard, sometimes. Lonely. They can’t make very many friends, with what they are, what they can do, it’s too dangerous. Kuroo still wakes up in the middle of the night to Kenma’s screams (echoes of memories, long passed) and holds him close until he stops sweating and trembling.

They cope differently. Kuroo is too outgoing, Kenma is too withdrawn, they’re both good at hiding the parts of themselves that they don’t want anyone to see and far too dependent on each other for it to be entirely healthy.

Sometimes, the spend days without seeing each other. Kenma sleeps twice as much as Kuroo, getting back from his job just as Kuroo leaves for class, leaving classes just as Kuroo arrives on campus, waking up to food left under saran wrap waiting for him on the dinner table and leaving his leftovers out for Kuroo to come home to.

It’s not an easy life. Not even a good one, some days. But Kuroo is right, they are alive, they are surviving, and that’s all that matters. It’s their system, and it works. Somehow. (It works, Kuroo would argue, because they’re still alive and getting by.)

Being happy is an empty hope that they cannot dwell upon for too long.

.

By the time Kuroo reaches their floor, he is almost asleep on his feet. Exam week has never been kind to him (or anyone, really) but he’s just passed his last final so he’s free to drop onto his bed and sleep for twelve hours.

He fumbles with his keys for a moment, before leaning against the door and almost falling in – Kenma must have forgotten to lock the door again. The apartment is quiet, though, despite Kenma having finished his finals earlier in the day, so Kuroo figures he’s asleep.

At least, until he toes off his shoes and the lights flicker on without him having touched them. His head shoots up, suddenly wide awake, identifying the intruder (sitting on the couch quite smugly, if you ask him) immediately.

He’s frozen in that position – arm up, hand resting against the wall to stabilize him with one foot half lifted off the ground, slipping out of its shoe, eyes locked with the stranger – with a thousand thoughts running through his mind all at once.

“Kuroo Tetsurou, I presume?” His voice is soft, uncertainty hidden behind a layer of heavy steel, recognizable only as a mirror of what Kuroo sees so often in himself. It matches his look, somehow, more tired than smug now.

Kuroo drops his arm and relaxes his posture, stretching out a few kinks he’s acquired over the past week or so from huddling over his textbooks and notes. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know you were right.”

The stranger quirks his head down slightly, allowing for Kuroo to call out his bluff. “My name is Yahaba Shigeru, from the Armed Defense Agency.”

“I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but then I’d be lying,” Kuroo mutters, giving Yahaba’s offered ID a cursory glance (not that he would have recognized a fake, but he’s not in the habit of showing weakness to strangers. Or anyone who wasn’t Kenma, really).

Yahaba chooses to ignore Kuroo’s statement in favor of continuing with, “Kenma is okay, you can relax a bit. He’s gone on ahead with my superior.” He doesn’t shy away from Kuroo’s sharp glare in response, nor does he react to the way Kuroo deflates after another moment.

“Where did you take him?” Kuroo knows he sounds tired, defeated – he _feels_ it.

“Agency headquarters. For what it’s worth,” Yahaba says, voice soft with the barest hint of concern, or maybe pity, “He went willingly. We didn’t threaten or force him, and we won’t with you.”

And Kenma, Kuroo knows, is more powerful than people think. Smarter, too. He would not be easy to subdue, much less without a disaster scene left behind, if he did not want to go, so Kuroo is inclined to believe Yahaba in this. Being able to persuade Kenma, though – this is what Kuroo wants to know more about. “Why are you here, then?”

“Are you familiar with the Armed Defense Agency, Kuroo?” Voice purposefully light, Yahaba meets Kuroo’s gaze with a newfound light hardening his eyes. “We are like you. Powered. Except we are part of the government – we take care of the things the government doesn’t understand, and sometimes things they do, if we’re feeling particularly nice.”

Kuroo’s answer is a brief, “I know.” Yahaba tilts his head, the question clear in his expression, but he doesn’t ask it out loud and Kuroo doesn’t provide an answer.

“Well, we’ve been keeping an eye on you and Kenma. It’s not safe, you know, living on your own without other people to protect you.”

“We don’t need other people to protect us,” Kuroo growls. “We never have.”

To his credit, Yahaba does not change his expression. He only keeps talking. “There is a recent rise in the threat of the Port Mafia. Do you know who they are?” At Kuroo’s single shake of his head, Yahaba nods. “Right, they’re another powered group, but they work mostly underground – smuggling, thievery, murder. Extremely powerful, and dangerous. They’re trying to acquire more people, especially powerful people.” The _like you and Kenma_ goes unsaid.

“And you want us to join the Armed Defense Agency first.” This much, Kuroo can gather himself.

Yahaba nods. “Exactly.”

“This is what you told Kenma, too?” For some reason, Kuroo feels like something’s missing.

“Kuroo, the two of you are in danger, is there something you’re not getting?”

“Why now? Why do I have to go with you?” It might just be Kuroo’s need to know what’s going on at all times, but he doesn’t feel satisfied.

Yahaba’s face twists into a frown. “You’re safer in the Agency’s headquarters. Our intelligence only told us that they’re coming after you, not when or why. Our job at the Agency is to protect people.”

And then the wall blows up.

Immediately, Yahaba jumps up from the couch and towards Kuroo, pushing him towards the inner apartment and turning to face the intruder. Kuroo, already tense from meeting Yahaba, grasps at the long-repressed feeling of pure energy, readying an attack, a defense, a _something_ , as the smoke clears to reveal a single form stepping lightly over the wreckage.

Around them, the fire alarm prompts their neighbors to rush out of their own apartments. The only people brave enough to peek in back away quickly when they see that the figure is glowing.

“Who are you?” Kuroo asks, but Yahaba raises a hand to silence him.

Instead, Yahaba starts concentrating, too, and Kuroo backs away from both of them. He doesn’t do well with being near sources of unknown power.

“I’m here for Kuroo Tetsurou.” A saccharine voice breaks through the silence. The smoke parts to reveal a striking figure in all black, leaning back on one leg and staring at Kuroo coolly.

Kuroo, personally, is much more inclined to leave with Yahaba and never come back.

“He’s not going with you,” Yahaba replies, voice low and body tense, “ _Daishou_.”

Daishou smiles, lips pulling back against white teeth, eyes crinkling. On anyone else, Kuroo thinks, it would be a grin. On Daishou, it looks more like a hateful grimace.

“So you remember me.” He seems pleased; Yahaba not so much.

Kuroo looks between them, wary of both. It occurs to him, briefly, how easy it would be to end this, whisper a _Ten Nights of Dreams_ , blanket the apartment in a veil of darkness and escape by himself. But the notion is dismissed as quickly as it comes to him; he remembers what happened the last time he used his power against other people. Besides, he needs to go with Yahaba to find Kenma, and he thinks Kenma is the only force that will keep him sane at this point.

“Let’s just get this over with, shall we?” Daishou asks, the bright green glow around him getting stronger. The air in the apartment starts heating up, and Kuroo follows Yahaba’s steps back.

“What’s his power?” Kuroo whisper-asks Yahaba, eyes still locked on Daishou.

“Fahrenheit 451,” Yahaba replies in the same tone, even as he calls on his own power, “Fire. Or, as Daishou prefers to use it, explosions.”

As if on cue, Daishou emits a small burst of fire, before letting it go almost as quickly. A sudden, uncharacteristically serene smile makes him seem younger, innocent almost.

It’s so unexpected, Kuroo needs a moment to process it.

“Les Miserable.” Yahaba says, drawing Kuroo’s attention with his sudden explanation. “I’m an empath.”

With another glance to Daishou’s loopy smile, Kuroo lets out a short laugh. “Useful.”

Yahaba nods, lips twitching with amusement. “Easiest way to subdue a person without a fight.” After a cursory glance at their surroundings – kind of scorched, now, with a gaping hole in one wall – he starts walking to the hole. “We should go now.”

Kuroo, feeling utterly lost, can do nothing but comply. “Is it alright to just leave him here?”

“Someone will come pick him up. I don’t want to bring him to headquarters.” Yahaba stops before going through the hole, looking back expectantly to Kuroo.

It’s not a hard decision for Kuroo. He can’t exactly live in the apartment anymore, and he’s looking forward to being reunited with Kenma.

.

“Kuro.” Kenma looks up in undisguised relief when the door opens and Yahaba announces their arrival. He’s sitting at a table, hands cupping a drink, across from the most strikingly attractive man Kuroo has ever seen.

The tension drains from Kuroo’s body the moment he sees with his own eyes that Kenma is unharmed. From his peripheral vision, he notices Yahaba sending him an amused look, one that he ignores in favor of rushing to envelop Kenma in a hug. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

(The gorgeous man sitting at the table mutters something along the lines of, “Of course he’s safe, we’re not the Port Mafia,” that Kuroo chooses to ignore.)

Kenma’s arms snake around Kuroo’s waist, resting there lightly while he lets Kuroo hold on for a moment longer than he usually does. “Kuro, you smell like smoke.”

“Ah.” Kuroo pulls back, dropping into the chair next to Kenma. “Some guy blew a hole in our wall. We’re okay, though. Yahaba’s stronger than he looks.”

A snort comes from somewhere behind Kuroo, and when he turns to look, it’s from a guy with dyed blonde hair that has two black streaks and an unagreeable scowl paired with a killer glare when he meets Kuroo’s eyes. Yahaba gives him an unimpressed look, then explains, “It was Daishou.”

This draws the attention of the stranger sitting at the table, who gives Kuroo a keen once-over and then moves on to raise an eyebrow at Yahaba. “Daishou’s back?”

When they launch into a conversation that Kuroo can barely keep track of (too many unfamiliar words and sentences where he understands the words separately, but not together), Kenma nudges him gently and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Kuroo drops his voice to converse quietly. “I didn’t use it. Yahaba got us out safe.”

Kenma replies with a noncommittal noise, and it’s another moment before he speaks again. This time, his voice holds an emotion that Kuroo can’t identify. “Kuro, do you… do you ever miss it?”

Kuroo blinks, hard. He takes a deep breath. “Where did this come from?” (Unintentionally, his gaze slides over to the other inhabitants of the office.)

“Oikawa,” Kenma gestures to the man sitting on the other side of the table, talking to Yahaba, “and the others. They use their powers freely. Even if you don’t miss it, don’t you think it would be nice to not be afraid of it?”

It strikes Kuroo then that he had never confessed to Kenma the main reason he had stopped using his power, and that Kenma had somehow figured it out anyway.

Maybe, he thinks, that’s because it’s the same for Kenma.

Realizing that he has yet to reply, Kuroo shrugs, averting his eyes. “And they’ve offered to help us, I’m guessing.”

“You don’t have to,” Kenma tells him.

“I’ll consider it.” Kuroo looks to Kenma, waiting for a response. With Kenma’s subsequent nod, the matter is sealed for later consideration.

.

The Armed Defense Agency houses Kuroo and Kenma in one of their safe houses, a small two-bedroom apartment downtown, near the Agency offices. They get their own bedrooms, a fully stocked fridge and pantry, Yahaba and his scowling friend (who Kuroo now knows is Kyoutani, but calls “Mad Dog-chan” after he hears Oikawa say it in passing) take them back to their apartment to grab whatever they can salvage.

Kyoutani stands guard by what’s left of the wall leading out into the hallway while Yahaba helps Kuroo and Kenma pack their stuff into boxes and bags.

The destruction did not touch their bedrooms; only the living room and part of the kitchen bore signs of the events from a few days prior. Kuroo, upon opening the door to see his room in the same state as he left it (messy, papers and clothes strewn across the floor and table), lets out a sigh and begins the task of deciding which parts of his life are expendable.

It’s, strangely, not as hard as he’d been expecting. In their secluded life, he and Kenma haven’t made many special memories, just those of domesticity, the few framed pictures coming from before they’d started living on their own. There’s one in particular that Kuroo picks up, dug out from the bottom drawer of his desk; it’s the only picture of the both of their families that they have. Years younger, Kenma and Kuroo stand with their respective families on either side. Kuroo feels himself softening, smiling.

He packs it in the bottom of his duffel bag, cushioned between folded shirts. Safe. Out of sight.

Kuroo doesn’t linger, moving to the next drawer that needs to be packed.

He realizes, when he finishes and stands in the middle of his room, looking around at the bare walls and empty furniture, that there wasn’t much to clear out to begin with. A single duffel bag sits at his feet, a cardboard box next to it.

When he turns around, Kenma and Yahaba stand just outside the doorway, waiting for him. He smiles at them and picks up his things, leaving his room without a look back.

They bring everything back to the apartment the Agency provides for them, but neither Kenma nor Kuroo unpack. It’s not much, so they’re fine with living out of the few boxes they have; in their free time, they look for other apartments – they still have their savings account, enough to pay for a deposit and a month or two. They still have their jobs, too, though they (thankfully) don’t have to go back to school for another week.

If Kenma gets antsy and disappears for a few hours with Oikawa (most days, Yahaba others) to learn how to control _A Tale of Two Cities_ better, Kuroo can’t blame him.

When Kuroo asks to join them one day, only Yahaba is surprised.

They practice in empty areas, Oikawa tells him. Places to minimalize the amount of destruction, should anything go wrong. Today, it’s an open field, next to a river. It’s a nice day out, and Kuroo sits a few feet away from Kyoutani to watch Kenma and Yahaba.

The three stand in an angle, Oikawa and Yahaba looking to Kenma. Kenma’s eyes are closed and even sitting meters away, Kuroo can see how hard he’s concentrating.

Kuroo, suddenly, is struck with the distinct feeling of being left behind.

Here Kenma is, trying to move on, learning how to take control of his own life, and what is Kuroo doing? Hiding in fear of losing control, but not having the control to lose.

A wave of frustration rips through him.

At least now he understands why Kenma was so willing (so _wanting_ ) to put in the effort to do something like this. As uncharacteristic as it had been to Kuroo, he knows that Kenma hates feeling useless even more than he hates effort.

When Yahaba glances over, face a mix of confusion and concern (possibly with the barest hint of amusement), Kuroo meets his gaze for only a second before flicking his eyes back to Kenma.

There’s on open invitation for him to join in – Oikawa had offered it the first time he had taken Kenma out for this training. For the first time, Kuroo considers it.

Then the field and river disappears.

In its place, Kuroo finds himself faced with _white_. Nothing but pure, undirtied white. It surrounds him completely: to each side, above, below. His heart leaps into his throat, until the white is broken and a few steps away is Kenma, giving him the biggest smile Kuroo has seen on his childhood friend since their powers had destroyed their families all those years ago.

A Tale of Two Cities. Kuroo had forgotten how overwhelming Kenma’s illusions could be.

He finds, faced with Kenma’s elation, that he had almost forgotten what Kenma’s smile looked like, too, so big and bright.

.

Kuroo takes a deep breath. Kenma and Oikawa stand in front of him, waiting. Damage control, in case he loses control. Briefly, Kuroo wonders who would overpower who, should it come to that.

Exhale.

It’s been years since Kuroo has actively tried to harness his power and use it. _Ten Nights of Dreams_. He imagines a cloak of darkness falling over them, and he knows it works when Oikawa sucks in a sharp breath.

Inhale.

Kuroo opens his eyes to see Oikawa tensed, eyes open but unseeing, barely refraining from crying out or waving his arms blindly in front of him in search of _something_ solid. Kenma, on the other hand, has his eyes shut tight, arms pulled to his sides.

It would be so easy to take away more than their sight, Kuroo knows. Make them lose one sense after another; first sight, then smell, then touch, feel, taste.

The power terrifies him.

Exhale.

He lets go.

Oikawa shies away from the sudden return of his sight and Kenma’s eyes flutter open. “You did it.”

One corner of Kuroo’s mouth twitches up into a weak semblance of a smile, bitter if not self-deprecating. “Yeah.”

“No wonder the Port Mafia wants you,” Oikawa mutters. “Kuroo, keep practicing and you could be a force to be reckoned with.” He meets Kuroo’s eyes, a silent command to take control of his power. “Right now, you’re a danger to everyone around you.”

Kuroo breaks their stare in a jerky nod. He knows. He’s always known, but something had shifted in him the day before, when he had seen Kenma’s smile again and realized just how much time had passed since they’d started living on their own. It clicks into place now, that he’s tired of being on the run, tired of feeling helpless, tired of hiding.

He thinks that something might’ve felt a little like hope.

He thinks, maybe, he – _they_ – can be happy, now.

His gaze flicks to Kenma, who has always been there with and for him, and knows him better than he knows himself. Kenma gives him a small smile and almost imperceptible nod.

“We want to join the Armed Defense Agency,” Kuroo announces then, straightening his back to look Oikawa in the eyes.

An almost feral grin splits Oikawa’s face, then, eager and proud. “We’ll be glad to have you. Welcome to the team, Kuroo, Kenma.”

When Kuroo looks back to Kenma, the latter’s smile has grown, and he knows that they’re going to be alright.


End file.
